Encoded for the Experiencing War web site for the Veterans History Project.
The recording of the interview with Richard Koch was digitized.
This transcription was encoded with minimal changes to the original text in an effort to preserve original content and idiosyncrasies of the person interviewed. Period language and terminology are also retained. Encoding is literal with regard to the transcriptionist's capitalization, punctuation, and spelling. Spelling errors are indicated with [sic]; however, recurring errors in spelling within a single document have been marked the first time and not subsequently.
Let me do it at closing and I will put this at the very beginning.
Yes.
Because we have launched into it now. Hi, this is David Meyer, or David Meyer O'Shea. I am the son of Earl D. Meyer, Company H 379 95th infantry. Today is March 2nd, and I'm in the home of Richard Koch. What was your final rank, Dick?
First Lieutenant.
First Lieutenant.
458th bomb group.
458th bomb group.
In the Eighth Air Force.
In the Eighth Air Force.
Stationed in England.
Stationed in England.
1941 I was a attendant at a service station, and I was listening to the radio, and the news came over that the Japanese had attacked Pearl Harbor. And so fortunately everybody else was listening to the radio, so no cars came in, so I didn't have to quit and go sell gasoline. And so that was my first contact that war was apparent. At that time I was a senior in high school.
Where were you living?
In Petaluma, California.
Okay.
It's a little town out of San Francisco on Highway 101. And when I began to listen to the radio and realized this was really it, I immediately thought, well, my golly, here I'm a senior in high school, and I am 19 years old, so I'm really ready to be drafted into the army. And my brother was already in. He had enlisted in the service. And so I went through school and graduated in 1941.
Uh-huh.
And then fortunately I got a scholarship to UC Berkeley, and so I was all set to go to Berkeley. And when I got to Berkeley, I settled in and went a full year. And then in May of that year, though, I volunteered for the Air Force. And it's kind of interesting how I happened to volunteer. I went to a movie that was made on the events that happened in Switzerland and that sort of thing --
Uh-huh.
-- and going across the -- Nazi Germany and so on. And that motivated me to volunteer.
Do you remember the -- who was the movie -- where the --
Oh, it was the one with a very famous actor. I don't remember her name anymore, but she sang "da da da da da da", you know --
Yeah.
-- that song, and she was great. Jean would remember. And so I didn't get accepted, though, because I was in college, and they wanted to leave me there as long as they could. So I didn't get a notice to enter the Air Force until August of '41.
Okay. August of '41?
And then in --
Or '42?
No, this would be August of '42.
August of '42. Okay.
Right. So I -- then I was sent to the army airbase in Santa Ana.
Okay.
And in Santa Ana, California, I had a choice of trying to be a flight instructor or a bombardier or a navigator or a pilot. And when I walked into the interview office, they asked me what I wanted to be, and I said, well, what do you need? And he said, right now we need bombardiers. So I says, I'll be a bombardier. So that's how I got to be a bombardier. And I graduated then from bombardier school in -- oh, I have it here somewhere. (Reviewing.) In -- I've forgotten when I even graduated. August 21st, 1943. And the bombardier class was in Roswell, New Mexico.
Roswell.
Which was pretty deserted territory. Had lots of room to drop bombs. (Laughter.) And while I was in Santa Ana on the airbase, we were in quarantine for six weeks. And we were in quarantine because there was a meningitis scare among the enlistees there. And so when I finally got out, I went to -- Santa Ana army airbase was close to Santa Ana, and there was a USO dance there. And so I went with Lawrence Ebencamp (ph), who was another person in my group, and he and I went to this USO dance. And at the USO dance there was a young lady that played the marimba. And it was really nice. And so I sat there with Ed and said, you know, we ought to dance. And then we looked around, and I saw a pair of legs go by. And I says, what do you think of those.
(Laughter.)
And Lawrence looked out there and he said, not bad, not bad, but she isn't from Kansas, I can tell you that.
(Laughter.)
(Laughter.) So I watched those legs go around, and then they came around again. And I says, I think I'll ask her to dance. And it turned out to be Jean, of course.
Yes.
And so when I danced with her, I got a little acquainted with her and realized she lived in Garden Grove, which was close by.
Uh-huh.
And so I danced the last dance of the evening with her, and I said, you know, would you mind if I took you home? And she said, no, that'd be fine. I need a little company anyway to ride on the taxi, or however we were gonna go.
Yeah.
And so we -- we were going to go on the Red Car.
Uh-huh.
And we got to the Red Car station, and, by God, it was closed. So that was in the middle of Garden Grove. But then Garden Grove at that time was only 2000 people, very small. And she lived on the outskirts. And so I said, well, let's walk home. We don't have to have the Red Car to drive in. So we walked home. And got up to her house, and she knocked on the door. And we got in, and her father opened the door. He says, well, it's about time. (Laughter.) And I didn't get in.
(Laughter.)
(Laughter.) So that was kind of funny.
(Laughter.)
And, of course, I didn't know my way around. It was the first time we were out of the airbase. So I didn't know where Garden Grove was from Adam.
I know.
So I finally walked down the street to where we had come in, you know.
Uh-huh.
And then a car started to follow me, and I thought, well, gee that's kind of funny, I wonder who that is, you know. And then finally I just stopped on the street and the car drove up to me, and the driver says, soldier, can I -- can I help you? And I said, well, I'm kind of lost, to be honest with you. I came out here with a young lady, but now I'm trying to get home. And he says, well, where's home? Santa Ana army airbase, I said. Santa Ana army airbase? He says, well, that's about 20 miles from here. And I said, well, I know it, but I'm not gonna walk it. We came in on the Red Car. And he says, well, you listen. It's about 1 o'clock in the morning and it's getting cold out there. Why don't you hop in the back and you can sleep in the back of my car. I'm the night watchman. So for Garden Grove, 2000 people, they had a night watchman.
They had a night watchman?
Yeah.
(Laughter.)
So --
And so you went to sleep in the back of his car?
I went to sleep in the car and woke up about 6 o'clock in the morning. And he says, well, I'm through work. He says, I'll take you over to where the Red Cars are. And that's how I got home then the next day.
Wow.
And so that was my entertainment. But fortunately I did have Jean's phone number.
Yeah.
And so the next weekend I called her, and I said, I wondered what you're doing this weekend? And she says, well, I'm busy this weekend, but what are you doing next weekend? And I said, well, I think I'd be available next weekend.
(Laughter.)
So we had one more date before I shipped out to Roswell, New Mexico.
Uh-huh.
And then when I graduated here --
Yeah.
-- I wrote to Jean, and I invited her to come and participate in the graduation.
Oh, you --
And she --
She came?
She accepted and came on the train from Santa Ana to Roswell, New Mexico, which, you know, was about 20 hours, I guess, on the train.
That's -- you made quite an impression on her.
Well, she made one on me, I know that.
(Laughter.)
(Laughter.) And so we participated together on the graduation, and then we got on the train, and I was transferred to Boise, Idaho --
Uh-huh.
-- which is way up in Idaho.
Yeah.
A long way. And I had ten days to do that. But I only spent two of them in Garden Grove and then went up to my family in Petaluma, California.
Uh-huh.
And then left there for Boise. And then I began to think about this, and finally I proposed over the mail.
You did?
Yeah.
When --
I sent her a letter, and I said, I think I'd like to marry you, and you seem like the kind of woman that I would like to have as my wife, so on and so forth. And she wrote back, and she says, well, I've been thinking about your proposal, but I think I'll accept.
(Laughter.)
So she didn't know me from Adam hardly, you might say. So she came up to Boise, Idaho, where I was in a bombardier group, and we got married, and --
What day was that?
Oh, that would be October the 4th -- oh, 1942.
1942?
Maybe '43 by that time. '43, I think.
1943?
Yeah, because I was in Cal on -- '41 to '42. Yeah, so it had to be '43.
Okay.
October 2nd. Had to be it. Yeah.
Because the graduation was --
August.
-- August 21st, 1943 --
Yeah.
-- from Roswell.
So it would be in October. October the 2nd. So that was a whirlwind romance.
So, again, just to get this: So you met her -- here's the graduation that she went to.
Right.
And you were at bombardier school how many weeks?
12 weeks.
12 weeks?
Yeah.
So you met her 14 weeks or so before the bombardier school?
Yeah.
So you meet her there. You spend a few days with her then. Then you go to bombardier school. She comes.
Yeah.
And then --
And don't forget I was in quarantine for six weeks.
And you were in quarantine for six weeks.
Yeah.
And then less than -- let's see, October, September, less than two months later, by the -- six weeks later you get married.
And to do it over the mail was pretty good.
To do it through the mail was great.
(Laughter.)
Oh, my gosh.
Oh, dear.
Do you remember any of the ceremony?
Oh, well, bombardier school was pretty hectic. You know, you're not used to getting up 6 o'clock in the morning, going all day and getting your work done and being a part of that. And they had a pretty stiff academic course, but fortunately I didn't have any trouble with that because going to Cal cured me, study habits and so on. So that was kind of nice, actually. I got quite a bit of credit for being in the air force. When I came back to Cal, I think I got, oh, at least a semester of credit. Excuse me. Memories are hard on you.
That's okay.
Anyway in Boise, Idaho --
Uh-huh.
-- her mother and father were not able to come to the wedding, and the way the father reacted when I first met him, I didn't expect him to come. (Laughter.)
Yeah.
And so Jean had a lot of guts to leave and come on the train up to Boise, Idaho. It was --
Did she stay in Boise afterward?
Oh, we went on a honeymoon for two or three days up to Payette Lakes in Idaho, northern Idaho, but then I got transferred shortly after that to Tonopau, Nevada. So Tonopau was a big airbase that was completely unoccupied. We were the first bomb group to go into there. And, of course, the little town only had about 800 people living there, you know, and so --
How big was your bomb group?
Yeah, our bomb group was bigger than Tonopau.
(Laughter.)
And so finding a place to live was a problem, you know, because Jean and I were married. There was an officer's club, but it wasn't finished yet, so you couldn't stay there. And we finally found a single room above a -- you know, a hotel that was called the Mizpah, M-I-Z-P-A-H, and actually the Mizpah hotel was still there when I was there the last time after the war. I thought I had a picture of it, but I don't know if I could put my finger on it. Yeah, probably can't. But we had a room above the gambling room, and so when I got there, I got paid. And I had a couple hundred dollars, and I went through this gambling room every night coming home. Then finally one night I saw a guy win some money, real money, you know, and I thought, gee, that looked pretty simple. He was playing the roulette table, and he put his money on black every time, and black came up and came up, and he parleyed that money, and he finally walked away with three or four hundred dollars. I said, well, that's -- I think I'll do that with red, and I lost my shirt. (Laughter.)
Oh, no.
(Laughter.) Yeah.
Oh, my gosh.
That was bad, wasn't it. Anyway then I had to borrow money, and fortunately our crew had some people on it who had money. So I was able to borrow enough money until the next payday. And it was kind of nice living there for two months.
Two months.
And then we got transferred overseas in January of '44. Getting overseas was an experience.
How did you go?
I was never over -- out of California, literally speaking you might say, until we went overseas.
Uh-huh.
And we flew the airplane over that we picked up in the airbase there, and we called it the Bomb Totin' Mama.
(Laughter.)
So can we walk in the other room?
Sure, sure, sure.
The reason for leaving at night is that the Germans had occupied Spain, and so they had German fighters along the Spanish coast. So if you went up in the daytime, why, they would spot you.
Sure.
So leaving Marrakech, we headed north to Spain, and were out, oh, I would say 50 miles from the coast.
Uh-huh.
And we stayed there. And it's a long trip. It must have been a couple thousand miles I guess from Africa to England. And when we got to the coast of France, all of a sudden the navigator says, gee, that looks like France, and I don't think we want to go to France. And so Walt, the pilot, said, well, what do you recommend, Harry? He says, well, I think you better turn -- you better turn west because that looks like it might be breasts up there ahead of us, you know. (Laughter.)
(Laughter.)
(Laughter.) And, sure enough, we headed west. And then, of course, we weren't coming in where we were supposed to to England, and so then we were met by the British. And, boy, they flew around our plane, and we did, "Mayday, mayday, hey, we're Americans, don't shoot us down." (Laughter.) And so they coasted us into the nearest airport to make sure we were really Americans coming up, but, of course, they knew planes were coming up and so --
Yeah, sure.
-- we had a code name to identify ourself, and so we got by, even though we were almost in France.
But do you remember the code name or anything?
No, I wouldn't remember that, you know.
Let me get something for you.
All I know is that we were in the wrong place at the right time.
Holy cow.
(Laughter.)
Now, when they come up, do they -- do they just -- to check out who you are, do they -- is there radio contact or something?
Oh, they buzz you and let you know that you're in their airspace, and fortunately we spoke English and so did they.
Oh.
So -- with the code, and they could recognize that it was an American bomber, but the Germans had captured some bombers, and actually they would raid the British with the American bombers, if you weren't careful.
Oh.
So it was -- was wartime, you know.
Sure.
But the nice thing about it is that we landed at Horsham St. Faiths eventually, and the quarters were great. They had -- really nice. The only thing, though, I remember about England very much is that it rained like hell. You can't believe the mud that those people had. (Laughter.)
(Laughter.)
Of course, the airbase was pretty new, you know.
Yes.
And all the sidewalks were not sidewalks like you think of, but they were wooden slats on two-by-fours.
Oh.
And you had to be careful where you stepped because if you stepped off, you'd go right down in the mud.
No.
Yeah, about a foot. (Laughter.)
(Laughter.)
More than one boot was lost there.
(Laughter.)
Uh --
How long were you at that airbase?
We were there -- I landed there in, oh, gosh -- we left the states the first week of January. Then we had our first raid on -- the first of February.
First of February.
And then February to April the 9th, is the day that we got shot down.
Do you remember going on the first raid, what that was like?
Oh, yeah. That might be Jean, is it?
I think it is.
Hi, Jean. You know Dave.
Sure.
That's okay.
The first air raid was a short one, just to Calais and back to bomb some local things, and so you get your feet wet with a couple easy runs. And then we ran into people like -- Berlin, and I was on the first Berlin air raid, and, man, that was really something.
Wow.
Fighters up there fighting for both sides. And the first trip we made to Berlin, we didn't have any air cover because the P-51s didn't come in until about, oh, March of '44.
Uh-huh.
And we got there in April and were flying in February and March. So we didn't have any coverage. And so we lost about 50 -- 50 bombers that day.
How many bombers took off --
We had about a thousand.
A thousand bombers?
Yeah, yeah. B -- and the nice thing about it was is that the B-24s were at about 24,000 feet altitude, but the B-17s were up here at 30,000. (Laughter.) And they would always say, well, how you guys doing down there?
(Laughter.)
(Laughter.) And the fighters -- of course, the German fighters would pick up the B-24s because they thought they were a little easier and less experienced. And that was true. The B-17s had been over in England since 1943.
Oh.
And so they were a pretty tight group. And the B-24s really were produced in Fort Worth, Texas and only came into the big line of -- coming off one or two a day, you know --
Uh-huh.
-- beginning in 1944. So our plane was brand new.
It was brand new?
Brand new, yeah, and --
And so when you flew it from Hamilton, it was -- it was brand spanking new?
Yeah, brand spanking new. And then, like, for instance, there were several articles here about Schweinfurt, and that particularly was a really tough fight because they had that protected with all kinds of fighters.
Schweinfurt, Frankfurt --
And I got a few of these. Jean sent them to me. (Reviewing.)
"Fighter opposition, American bomber fleets, last Nazi plane plants".
And, of course, you knew every time you went out you might not come out, but you always had that kind of optimism, that you were gonna make it back.
Yeah. Did you have any sort of lucky charm or anything?
Oh, I had a lucky charm. I had a scarf that Jean gave me that I wore, and I even saved it through all the prison camps and everything. I have it stored away somewhere. (Laughter.) But you could see that sometimes the fleets were really huge, 1700 planes.
1700 planes.
This particular one is on the one we got shot down. Notice it was April the 9th.
"April 9th, London, giant fleets of --"
That's the day we got shot down.
"Giant fleets of American heavy bombers, some of which flew beyond the range of their fighter screen, hammered five interrelated Nazi aircraft factories in Poland, east Prussia, northeast Germany." And this is when -- this is when you were shot down?
Yeah.
You were over Hamburg?
Right. What happened was is that it was really foggy that morning when we got up, and it was supposed to clear, and we took off in the fog, and they said we would come out at 14,000 feet. And so 60 planes took off, and we kept going round and round and round and round. 14,000 feet and we were still in the fog. 16,000 feet, we were still in the fog. We finally came out at 18,000 feet and looked around, and there was only four other planes from our bomb group of 60. And so we circled around there, and finally four, five more showed up.
Uh-huh.
And so we radioed the tower and said, hell, where is the rest of the group?
Sure.
(Laughter.) And they aborted, because when they got to 14,000 feet and didn't come out, they went back to base. So we said, well, what should we do? And so they told Walt, the pilot, that there must be other flights up there having the same trouble. See if you can't get a group together that can go on this flight because it's really important. And, sure enough, as we waited up there a little bit, other flights came in, and finally a -- probably of the 1700 that they say here -- I don't think we had over 800 actually that went on the flight. The 1700 took off --
Yeah.
-- but we never had that many. So we got hit by German fighters going over the Kiel Canal, and we lost one engine at that time, but one engine -- those bombers were made to fly on three, so that didn't stop us, but, sure enough, as we got over to Poland, we got hit again and we lost another engine. And so at that point we dropped the bomb. We don't know where they dropped. I mean they just dropped.
Just dropped them --
Yeah.
-- along the way.
And -- you know, over Germany, just so it was over Germany. You didn't give a damn where they dropped. It was just one of those things.
One of those things.
And so we had a choice. We were near the border of Poland and Germany. Could we go to Sweden?
Uh-huh.
Yeah. Could we go home? Well, maybe. We could go to Switzerland. Well, Walt says, with two engines, you're not gonna get over the Alps. You'll never make it. So that ruled out Switzerland.
Ruled out Switzerland.
And then they said, well, let's go to Sweden. And I couldn't swim. So I said to Walt -- I says, you know, I can't swim. I don't want to go in that cold damn water. (Laughter.) And he says, well, let's go home then. So we went down about 2000 feet and tried to get home. We got back as far as Hamburg. So we actually got back quite a little ways.
You did.
And over the city of Hamburg, a couple of Me 109s began to follow us, and Walt says, everybody got their chutes on? I think we're being followed. And so man your guns. So everybody got on alert, and, sure enough, those two Me 109s came up behind us and hit us directly with a 20-millimeter shell. And I was in the waist at the time trying to -- trying to be of help to the waist gunner, and the plane literally began to burn. Even the metal was burning. And I knew that we were going down. And so I said to Coronetti, who was in the waist with me -- where is he. (Reviewing.) He would be I think up here somewhere. Let's see. (Reviewing.)
There's a picture.
Well, I have a newspaper by him somewhere here.
Yeah.
(Reviewing.) There, he is. This was the other waist gunner. And he had already anticipated what I was gonna say, and he had opened the bomb bay doors and was strapped across it. He had his hands on the front part and his feet were on the back, and I stepped on him and we both went out together.
Oh, my gosh.
And that's how we got out. But the plane blew up then shortly after that.
The plane blew -- so -- so you're flying -- you're floating down and you see the plane blow up?
Yeah, you could see it. It just cartwheeled, and we thought everybody in it was killed, but as I mentioned, two of them did get out.
Who got out?
The pilot and the copilot. They were blown out, right out up in the open air. Had enough sense to open their chutes and float down, but, of course, they were captured anyway, but they got out alive. The other three went down with the plane. Now, whether they were alive at that point or not, we don't know because that cannon came right through that plane and just blew it literally out of the sky, you might say. But when I came down, I could see all kinds of little things running around down there. And at first they looked like ants.
Uh-huh.
And then as I got closer, I could tell they were people, and then as I got closer, I could see they were carrying clubs and pitchforks and things like that, and it didn't look very promising. And so I looked around to see where I was. And fortunately there was a tree not too far away. So I maneuvered the chute and landed in the top of the tree, and fortunately the tree was a hundred feet tall.
(Laughter.)
(Laughter.) So nobody could throw anything at me and hit me.
(Laughter.)
(Laughter.) And on the way down, realizing I was gonna be met by a group of people, I threw away my pistol and all my gear that you use for defense. I figured that it was no time to be defensive. And, sure enough, within about five minutes, German soldiers came, and they told me in German to get down. "Heraus", et cetera.
From the tree?
Yes.
And you were a hundred feet above ground?
Oh, yeah. Well, it's easy to climb down a tree.
Okay.
You know, you get out of the chute, you can climb right down. So they protected me. And the funniest thing that happened, though, at that moment was the captain of the group that was captured, looked at me and "was ist zu namen?" And I knew a little German, so I knew that meant what my name was. And so I said Richard Koch (Cook). And "Cook" was the way my dad had pronounced it. And he looked so puzzled, and I finally caught on, and I says, "nein, Richard "Koch".
Ah.
And he says, "Ah, ein Deutscher".
(Laughter.)
(Laughter.) And that saved me from being beat up. (Laughter.) And so he took me to the jail, and that's where we were that night. Hamburg city jail has a dungeon area for the really dangerous prisoners. We were considered dangerous, (Laughter) and they just didn't know what we were. Anyway, so we were there three or four nights, and the funniest thing that happened after being captured and getting to be called a Deutscher was the meal that they brought in. About midnight they brought in a big loaf of dark brown bread, real -- it almost looked grayish.
Uh-huh.
And when you ate it, it didn't taste like bread. It was a little bit on the greasy side, a little bit.
Uh-huh.
And it had a pretty high content of lard in it. And I tasted it, but, hell, we hadn't had anything to eat all day --
Sure.
-- you know. And they brought us some tea made out of barley. So we had barley tea and this bread for supper. And the radio operator, he was a finicky eater anyway. He tasted that, and he says, uh, I can't eat that. He drank his tea, but then we all shared on his --
On his bread.
-- share. So we ate it. The next morning we got another loaf of bread and more barley tea, and he didn't eat any of that, but when lunch came, he was hungry. (Laughter.)
(Laughter.)
(Laughter.) And so up until that time, we had his share to eat.
(Laughter.)
But then he wanted his share back. Well, we said, that's tough.
(Laughter.)
(Laughter.) Tough word for you.
This is when you are in the Hamburg dungeon?
City jail.
In the city jail?
Yeah.
How many of you were in a cell?
Five of us were in the same cell. Yeah. So we all had to laugh about it and kidded him after he -- after he got out, was -- that he wanted it back, how are we gonna give it back to him?
(Laughter.)
(Laughter.) Anyway, the most dangerous part then that happened to us was going back to the Frankfurt interrogation camp, and the trains that we were on was a boxcar train, and the planes that Britain sent over at night, Mosquitoes --
Uh-huh.
-- boy, they were really dangerous, you know. They were shooting up the trains that were running. And so the engineers on the train would be getting a signal from the German air force that Mosquitoes were coming over, stop the train, turn out the lights, you know. And then when you could go, why, you would go. But one time we either got going too fast or something, I don't know. Anyway, the first Mosquitoes that came over shot up the whole damn train.
Oh, my gosh.
I was lucky only a couple of people were wounded in the particular boxcar I was in, but that was enough to scare you.
Holy cow.
Oh, yeah. Those machine guns, when they come through there, they just tear everything apart. But they damaged the engine. So we had to wait until we got a new engine. And so that was their target for the night, so to speak.
What did they sound like? You know, in movies it's like (noise).
Oh, yeah, (noise). I mean, you know, it really shook the heck out of you.
Oh, boy.
So it was really something. And we made it, though. I made it, I guess I should say, but some people naturally got hurt and were taken to hospitals local, you know, and that sort of thing. But when we got to the interrogation camp, we were astounded how big it was. They had 1400 air force prisoners there already. And they were interviewing them to get information and so on and so forth, and I was in solitary confinement, in for about ten days until my turn got to be to interviewed. And it was an interesting interview, because when I went in there, this captain -- I'm assuming he was a captain -- he was an officer, spoke perfect English. And so I was so struck by that, I said, you speak such good English, I can't hardly believe it. Oh, he says, that's because I'm from Boston.
(Laughter.)
(Laughter.) And I said, from Boston? What are you doing here?
What did he say?
Well, it turned out that he was visiting his relatives in Germany when war broke out. So --
So --
-- he didn't get to go home. He was taken right into the service and put in the espionage group because he spoke perfect English. And so after we broke the ice that way, he says, I know everything about you. I know you're from the 458th bomb group, and I know the name of your commander, and I don't have to interview you. There's nothing that you can tell me that I don't know. And he was correct. He knew --
He knew those things.
-- the head of our bomb group. He knew when we took off. He knew what we were carrying, and he knew where we were going.
What was the name of the head of your bomb group?
458th bomb group.
The name of --
It would be part of the Eighth --
Eighth --
Eighth Air Force.
Eighth Air Force.
See, the Eighth Air Force went to England with B-17s.
Okay.
And so B-17s were in the pipeline and coming off the production, whereas B-24s just came off about -- maybe six months before we flew.
Okay.
So B-24s were the heavies, so to speak. We could carry more bombs than the B-17. The only thing was by carrying all those bombs, you were at a lower altitude. At 22 to 24,000 feet, you were a better target than those guys up there.
Uh-huh.
So we were pretty envious of them up there. So it was interesting.
So --
I did -- I had one picture of a bomber raid we made of Biarritz. That's in Spanish port, and that's the way it looks from way up there.
Holy cow.
And the front bomb -- bombardier was the one who dropped the bombs on the target, and then you -- when you had your turn or you dropped your bombs.
So you would --
Yeah, for pattern bombing really. It was pretty effective.
Okay. And -- okay.
Yeah.
So what -- in any bomb group, how many planes would you -- would be in a formation?
Well, in the usual raid of the 60 that would take off from our group, 52 or 54 would be in a flight pattern.
Okay.
And you would fly four together, four people.
Four?
Would be four planes.
Four planes together.
And that would be a tight formation for you, because then your machine guns would cross, and there would be more protection.
Sure.
But I can honestly say that I betcha I shot a million bullets, and I'm not sure I ever hit anybody.
(Laughter.)
(Laughter.)
Oh, boy.
So --
Now when you -- Biarritz, Biarritz, this is in Spain? B-I --
Yeah, it's a Spanish place. Spain was occupied by the Germans at that time.
Oh, sure.
You could see 458th there. (Indicating.)
There you are. That's your group?
Whether we were the 24th plane or not, I don't know. Probably this was taken by a reconnaissance flight.
Okay.
We were headed for this area here, which was a train depot. (Indicating.)
Train depot. Could you tell it's a train depot by looking at it now or just --
That's smoke, you know, the fire and --
Ah.
-- debris from the plane that went on ahead of us.
Okay.
The lead bombardier was usually considered the best, most accurate person, and then we would drop on his target. It worked out pretty good.
Now --
After we got captured then --
Yeah.
-- we were in this prison camp, and my most vivid memory is of walking to the prison camp, and it was at least ten miles square, and there were just scads of prisoners there already. And as we walked along the fence, I saw these prisoners who had beards down to here. (Indicating.)
Down to -- halfway down their chest?
Yeah. And they were skinny. And I thought, my God, is that what I'm gonna look like in a few months, you know. (Laughter.) It turned out that they were English prisoners captured at Dunkirk in 1939. Can you imagine?
Holy cow.
Gee. They had been there five years when I got there. So...
Did you talk to them at all?
Oh, you could yell, and they'd say, hi mate, you know, and that sort of thing, but you couldn't talk to them. That was verboten.
Okay.
Forbidden.
Yes, I know.
And then we were in a compound for mostly American prisoners. And they had three compounds: One for the British, one for the Americans, and then there was another compound for -- I don't know what exactly.
Uh-huh.
But they were there. But the enlisted men weren't fortunate like I was. They had to walk to their prison camp, and I was in a boxcar but almost got killed -- killed with the boxcars. (Laughter.)
So --
But they had to walk at least a thousand miles, and the only boots they had on is what they had on when they were captured.
Holy cow.
And so --
What -- where was the prison camp?
In Barth, Germany for me.
Uh-huh.
It would turn out it was an officer's camp, and their -- their camp was in Austria, as I remember it. (Reviewing.) This story by my -- my waist gunner that was opposite me -- the bombardier was a waist gunner when -- after the bombs are dropped.
Okay.
So he says in here where they went: Stalag Luft 17B, a German prison camp in Krems, Austria. Ours was Stalag Luft 1 in Germany. And there was a movie made about Stalag Luft 1 that I never saw, but I know it was -- I know it was made.
Uh-huh.
And I guess it was pretty realistic. We never saw that movie, did we, Jean?
Well, we saw Stalag 17. That was a movie.
Was it 17?
Yeah.
Oh, okay. Well, 17 is where Coronetti was --
Where Coronetti was.
-- stationed.
Do you still --
Yeah.
Is -- Mr. Coronetti, is he still --
Yeah. I have Doctor PKU for my license plate.
(Laughter.)
(Laughter.) But one advantage of being in the camp was that I began to read quite a bit and play Bridge quite a bit. And as an officer, I didn't have to work. So -- and the morning would begin with fixing some breakfast over a coal fire stove, and then you would take a walk for an hour around the camp.
Uh-huh.
And then we would sit down and play some Bridge and then get a little more exercise and then do the reading in the afternoon and then wash up at night. And the only way you could get a bath was -- I hope I can find it for you, 'cause I know you'd appreciate it. (Reviewing.) I am looking for the particular -- there's a picture here of getting your bath.
This book, is this something you had at the time or you made later?
Oh, yeah, you had lots of time. Lots of time. (Reviewing.) Well, doggone it. When you want something, you can't seem to find it.
Did you get mail in the camp?
What's that?
Did you get mail?
Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. It wasn't e-mail, I'll tell you that.
(Laughter.)
(Laughter.) But Jean wrote pretty regularly.
Did -- how did you find out that Dick was captured?
I got a telegram from the Red Cross. First I got a telegram of -- saying that he was missing, and then three weeks later, I got a telegram saying that he was a prisoner and he was okay.
That he was okay.
Yeah. And I think it was probably through the Red Cross that I got the mailing address to write him. We had special forms that we had to write on that kind of -- you folded them up and put the address on the outside, and you had to print everything in block letters. And it really was kind of useless in writing because you couldn't mention anything political. You couldn't mention anything about the war. It would just -- there wasn't very much to say. You could talk about the weather.
This was Jean getting the telegram from the --
That was an award. That was an award.
An award, yeah. She didn't know I was alive at that point.
Yes, I did. Yes, I did.
No, you couldn't have.
Yes, I did.
Well, maybe she did.
Metal award.
Yeah.
She was getting an award for you?
Yeah -- I don't know.
Oh. She looks proud.
But these were the type of letter you would get.
So it's about -- a V mail?
Yeah.
Three inches by four inches or something.
And then this was in the local paper when they found out I was alive.
"Richard Koch reported prisoner in Germany. Lieutenant Richard Koch is a prisoner of war in Germany, according to S. Wein Holt, father of Mrs. Koch, former Jean Holt."
Oh, here's the picture of my bath.
Of your bath.
Yeah.
Let's see.
Barth was on the North Sea, and every Sunday you would go to the ocean.
Oh.
And that's where you got your bath.
Oh.
(Laughter.)
(Laughter.) A picture of you --
Yeah.
(Laughter.)
(Laughter.)
-- and a German soldier.
And a German soldier. He got his bath, too.
With a gun in his hand. Stalag --
There was no hot water, see, that you could really bathe in or shower. No normal showers, in other words.
Yes. So that's Stal -- it says Stalag Swim Parade --
Yeah.
Now, was the North Sea cold?
Oh, yeah.
Oh, so --
This is a barrel.
Uh-huh.
And we made beer. You could take prunes --
Uh-huh.
-- and sugar and water and let it ferment, and eventually it would bubble and brew and smell like (sniff, sniff, sniff) pretty good.
(Laughter.)
(Laughter.) And we had to have that under our floor so the Germans wouldn't find it, but I think they smelled it, but they knew what it was. So they left it alone.
So you just had floorboards you'd pick up and then --
Yeah.
Okay.
Yeah. But we had a barrel maker. That's a pretty good barrel.
That's a great barrel.
And it didn't -- and it didn't leak.
How high was the barrel?
Oh, I would say it's about two feet high.
About two feet high.
Yeah. And about 12 to 14 inches across.
Ah.
And we had a lid.
You had a lid.
Yeah.
It says --
Pretty fancy, I'll tell you.
But it -- what it -- what it says is Anheuser Wolf Vomit Corporation -- Vomit Company.
Corporation.
Corporation.
Yeah. (Laughter.)
(Laughter.)
Well, some guys would drink so much they'd get really sick.
Oh, yeah.
Awful.
Prune brew, it says.
Yeah. (Laughter.)
And it says: Roster: Bob Knoll, Carl West, Bob Frei --
Freitag.
Freitag, Ed --
Suprick (ph).
And Ed --
Feinberg.
Feinberg. Armand Sussman (ph)?
Sussman.
Clyde -- Clyde --
Gunderson.
Gunderson. John Downey.
Yeah. Now, Feinberg and Sussman were Jewish.
Ah.
And they were very frightened when they got captured by the Germans and thought maybe they'd be sent to a concentration camp, so on and so forth, but both of them were officers, and the Germans respected rank, and so they came to their -- same place I did.
Okay.
So that was good for them.
It was good.
And these are the regular guard towers. You've probably seen guard towers like that.
That's a wonderful -- you made this drawing, guard tower at --
Yeah.
-- Stalag Luft 1.
Yeah.
Barth, Germany. Beautiful. Carl West. August, 1944.
Yeah.
I just noticed the name.
Yeah. And then over here is a picture of the actual room somewhere here. (Reviewing.) Oh, Klim was the big joke of the day. That was powdered milk. That came in the Red Cross parcels.
Klim?
Yeah. And then these were the three members of our crew who got killed.
Oh, I am sorry.
Raleigh and Cluck (ph) and Stuwarsky (ph). And Tunis, Rome.
Tunis, Rome, Paris, Bucharest, Sofia, Warsaw, Berlin.
Yeah, each of them got captured by us. Why we added them. Berlin was the last.
Okay.
That's Bomb Totin' Mama, too.
Bomb Totin' Mama?
Yeah. (Laughter.) Well, that was quite a plane. It was a sorry mess to see her go down.
Yeah.
Ah, somewhere --
So you were with her. You were with the plane for --
Well, we picked her up in Hamilton Air Force Base in early January.
Early January.
And it was shot down April the 9th. So she lasted four months.
Four months. How -- how many days a week would you guys go up on missions?
Oh, you went up with the weather. I mean, the weather in England (noise) -- you know, during the winter is pretty awful.
Uh-huh.
So any day you had a prediction that you could have visibility and you could fly, why, you would go up. So we started our missions in February. So we flew quite a bit in March, and then April the 9th is when we went down. So there were 13 missions during that period of time.
Okay.
And the reason you didn't fly was it would be raining like cats and dogs. There was -- or the fog would be so bad, you couldn't take off or they wouldn't know if you could find a field on your way back.
(Laughter.)
(Laughter.)
Was it -- when you were in -- in -- in the prisoner of war camp and you talked about breakfast, what sort of breakfast would you make? What sort of food did you have to eat for breakfast?
Oh, well, you would have dried eggs every morning for breakfast, and bacon.
And bacon?
And coffee. But I didn't drink coffee at that time. But eggs and bacon was standard routine. Orange juice. Always had orange juice.
Orange juice, too?
Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. This is what the bunks looked like inside the room.
Okay.
They were up six in a row.
Six in a row?
Yeah.
One, two, three --
Six -- one, two, three.
Had six in a row.
Yeah.
And underneath them there are -- there's --
Well, those are trash cans.
Trash barrels?
Yeah, stuff like that.
Trash cans. The bunks, are they made out of just wood slats across?
Yeah, wood slats. You would get a little straw mattress --
Uh-huh.
-- that you could use.
Did -- did you have anything for a pillow or --
Oh, no, didn't have -- you were prisoners.
You were prisoners --
Yeah.
-- of course.
Yeah, a pillow, that's comfort.
That is comfort.
Yeah. (Reviewing.) This was quarters at the --
Okay.
-- Camp Patrick Henry when we returned from the hoosegow. This was at Camp Lucky Strike.
Where was that?
That was in Normandy, France.
When did you get -- when were you released from the camp?
May 15th.
'45?
So I -- yeah, '45. I was released actually at the time the Germans surrendered before actually they declared VHA Day.
VE Day?
VE Day, yeah. I think we were in the -- Jean, we were in the states on VE Day, weren't we? Yeah, I had forgotten what day it was. I know it was in August.
I don't know what day of the week it was. We were in San Jose, though.
Yeah.
When Japan surrendered?
Yeah.
So --
Well, we had two months of R & R at the very nice hotel on Santa Monica.
Oh, that was -- yeah, we weren't there for two months, honey.
No?
About a week.
Is that all?
Yeah.
I thought we were there longer, but maybe not.
Must have been a --
Yeah. Well, here's April of '45.
April of '45: My darling, you can imagine, we are feeling pretty gay here these last few days. I bet.
Yeah.
Seems hard to believe. Ah, it would be wonderful to be home for your graduation and it certainly would be a thrill for me. Since our mess hall burned down --
Yeah.
-- we've been cooking in our own rooms. How did your mess hall burn down?
Nobody actually knew whether it was set on fire by our own people or whether they burned it or whether it was just an accident. I think it was just an accident.
Just an accident.
You forgot to tell him about your bath, though, where you took your bath.
Oh, in the North Sea.
Oh, yeah.
Oh, yeah. You did tell him about that.
I showed him the picture.
Okay.
Now, did -- now -- so would you bring soap out there and did you -- or you just --
Soap? You didn't have any soap.
So your bath was just jumping in the water?
Well, it's salt water. Boy, I'll tell you (Laughter) you came out of that in a hurry.
(Laughter.)
(Laughter.) But you knew you had to be clean, and you'd get only once a week, so...
Now, in the pictures, though, you -- did -- the people from Dunkirk were -- all had the long beards, but did you grow a beard at all? Did your beard grow?
No, I didn't have much of a beard to grow, to be honest with you. I don't remember even shaving over there, to be honest. That's something I hadn't even thought about.
Because it --
I maybe got a razor from Jean or something or maybe the Red Cross gave us --
Uh-huh.
I guess the Red Cross gave us toothbrushes and toothpaste, shaving gear.
Did you smoke at the time?
No, no. I was lucky. I never got into smoking. Smoking and alcohol -- Jean and I didn't even drink.
Oh.
And her father saw to it that she didn't drink. (Laughter.) Is that right, Jean? (Laughter.)
This says -- just read you this. Just a little bit: "Surprisingly we've been making out very well. Casey made up some dishes out of "something" cans, and we cook in our own double boilers and eat out of tin cans. We keep the room swept up, too. It's kind of fun, Jeanie. How sweet, it will be wonderful to be together again. I should get a 30-day-furlough at least."
Yeah.
"So the snaps I received from your mom were wonderful. The cake certainly looks attractive to me." So you would get packages from the Red Cross and from --
Yeah. See, I was really lucky because the map -- if I have one here somewhere. This was a map we had of --
Map of Germany and the invasion fronts. Thirty-five cents.
Everything is kind of delicate there, you know.
Sure.
It's so old.
River Vasser, the River Elbe --
Here is Rastatt.
Rastatt.
So Barth would be right in here. (Indicating.)
Okay.
But it's not marked.
Not marked. So --
But we were 16 miles from Rastatt.
Okay.
So this was the North Sea we were in.
Yes. Holy cow.
And you could see we were pretty far north.
You were.
Konigsberg.
Uh-huh.
Vilna. Moscow would be up here. (Indicating.)
Yes. So you're -- you're as far north as -- Danzig is over here.
Right.
Yeah.
Well, the ships that brought the Red Cross parcels came from Copenhagen.
Ah.
And so they would drop them off at Rastatt. So for me to get to -- Red Cross parcels was really good.
Oh, yeah --
Yeah.
-- because you're close by.
But the poor old guys down in Austria --
Holy cow.
-- they never got any Red Cross parcels.
No.
They never got there. They were destroyed usually by American flights bombing the railroads.
Oh, gosh. And here's Hamburg.
Yeah. That's where we got shot down.
This is where you got shot down.
The Germans were so "organized". We got shot down over here, and here's Frankfurt somewhere down here. Where is it. (Reviewing.)
Frankfurt's here. (Indicating.)
There, yeah. They sent us by boxcar all the way down there. And then from Frankfurt they sent us all the way back to --
Up to --
-- Rastatt somewhere.
Rastatt over here.
Yeah, there. So instead of going from here to here, we went to Frankfurt.
Yes.
That was the interrogation place, see. So once you got through there, then you went to the prison camp.
So is that a few hundred miles?
Oh, at least.
Yeah, that looks like 300 miles from the scale.
Yeah. It took us five days.
Five days from --
Yeah.
-- Hamburg to Frankfurt?
Yeah. Because you could only travel at night. You didn't dare travel in the daytime.
Oh.
It was too dangerous.
You were there in the camp when you -- when did you first hear about the D-Day invasion?
Oh, the very day it happened.
Oh, you did?
Yeah. That's an interesting story. Jean sent me a box of cigars.
Uh-huh.
And I didn't smoke. And she had no idea how valuable cigars were. And, my gosh, the Germans would give you almost anything, and I can't remember the number of cigars that the crystal set cost, but we got a crystal set, and then we also bought a typewriter, and we -- there's a picture of being captured.
(Reviewing.) This is -- this is what name, Koch, Richard, 24th -- 24 November, 1921.
My birthday.
And it says something --
Geburtstag.
-- North Dakota.
Right.
Something North Dakota. Is that where you --
Dickinson.
Dickinson, North Dakota?
Yeah.
Religion: Roman Catholic.
Right.
Uh --
And this is --
Valentine.
-- Valentine, my father, and Barbara --
Barbara.
-- my mother.
USA. Bomb -- I guess bombardier. Deinbrad (ph): U.S. Air Force. Civil beruf: Student, college. And then gefangennahme -- 0752815.
That was my serial number.
That's your serial number. And here's your picture. You were --
4415.
4415.
Yeah. It was a regular picture, too, I will tell you.
It's a good picture. You looked good.
Well, that's the day I got there. (Laughter.) End of CD 1 of 2 Beginning of CD 2 OF 2
Then the Russians came in, and, of course, then things straightened out quite a bit.
Did -- were -- how did the Russians treat you?
The Russians treated us as comrades in arms, you know. And you just can't believe it, but the first thing we saw with Russians was a great big tank, Tiger tank, and then jeeps, trucks, then horses, wheelbarrows and finally foot soldiers. So the whole army didn't have a quartermaster corps. They ate right off the land.
Oh, they did?
And whatever animals happened to be in their way got shot and butchered. And at night they'd have about a squad of 10 or 12 people around the bonfire --
Uh-huh.
-- out in the field. And I looked out the first night they were there, and it was just like a whole field lit up and about a thousand bonfires burning. And then they knew we were hungry. So they drove in 14 cows.
Holy cow.
Gave them to us.
Uh-huh.
Well, what are we gonna do with 14 cows?
Yeah, what are you gonna do?
This was quite a problem. (Laughter.)
(Laughter.)
Fortunately we had a few butchers in the camp.
Yeah.
But, of course, we didn't have anything to kill a cow with. (Laughter.)
No. So --
Well, the Russians brought in some knives and said "go to it". (Laughter.) And it was a gory mess, let me tell you. (Laughter.) But we went at it with a vengeance. Got 'em cut up and lit the fires like they did, broiled 'em, had 'em, ate 'em.
Do you -- was that the first -- first steak you'd had in --
Oh, I don't know if you would call it a steak. I can't remember what I had anymore.
Okay. Broiled cow then.
(Laughter.) But I never will forget our consternation when they drove in 14 cows. (Laughter.) And they didn't speak much English, but they gave us the idea that these were ours. (Laughter.)
Wow. Did you take part in the butchering at all?
Oh, I wasn't a butcher myself, but I helped out, but we let the butchers actually handle that part.
Sure.
You didn't have bacon and eggs for breakfast in the prison camp, no. You told David you did. Not in the prison camp, I meant at the place where we were stationed in England.
In England? In England.
Yeah.
But at the prison camp you had powdered eggs?
We didn't have powdered eggs. We had -- here's the typical breakfast in the prison camp.
Okay. Go ahead.
Bread --
Uh-huh.
-- barley tea.
Okay.
And some kind of a grease spread for the bread, and then you got a boiled potato. So that was it. Once in awhile they would slice some potatoes and fry 'em and you'd have fried potatoes, but that was exceptional. Maybe Sunday.
Okay.
And then lunch was more potatoes, more barley tea, more bread. Supper you might have a little variety. If the Mosquitoes came over during the night and shot up some meat --
Uh-huh.
-- horses or cows or pigs or whatever, sometimes we would get something of that.
Uh-huh.
But, otherwise, you pretty much lived on potatoes, barley tea, bread, whatever we put on the bread, was some sort of a butter-like -- it wasn't butter, but it was some kind of a greasy stuff, and then you'd have rutabagas.
Rutabagas.
And you'd have cabbage. So those were your three staples.
Oh, my gosh.
Yeah.
And Klim?
Oh, yeah. You had your Red Cross parcel.
(Laughter.)
Well, they were quite valuable because they provided other items like protein in the Klim --
Sure.
-- and vitamins and things in your chocolate bar and stuff like that.
Sure.
So... Food was scarce, but the German soldiers, we thought, didn't eat much better than we did.
Yeah.
And although we all lost weight, we were -- I was relatively healthy. I don't remember ever getting sick.
When you left, how many pounds -- how much do you think you weighed?
I weighed about 120.
120.
Yeah.
And when you went into the service, how much did you weigh?
Oh, I would have weighed about 135 to 40.
Okay. So a 15, 20-pound loss?
Yeah.
The --
Food was not the big item there. I mean, survival was the main thing.
Can you remember a time that you were -- that you were frightened in the camp?
Oh, well, we were kind of dumb, now that I think about it, but we decided to build a tunnel, to dig it.
Uh-huh.
And we got pretty far with the tunnel. And then one night when we were digging in the tunnel, I was in the tunnel with another guy and myself, and we heard "heraus mit aus", you know, means "get out". And all of a sudden a pistol went off, you know, and that let us know that they meant business. And I think that was probably the most scared you got --
What --
-- because you -- if they were gonna shoot you --
Sure.
-- you know.
What -- so the tunnel, did you --
Well, the tunnel, I bet when we were caught, was about 30 feet long --
That's --
-- we were practically under the fence going out.
Uh-huh.
In fact, we would have been out in a couple of days if we hadn't been found. So getting out was a complicated thing because we had to have priorities. The people that did the digging got first.
Uh-huh.
And then the highest officers got next, and then the lowest officers were last. And not everybody wanted to go out in the tunnel, but whoever wanted to go out had a priority status. And so that night, though, that we got caught, we don't know how they happened to find it, but they did, and so that cut that short.
How long did you work on the tunnel?
Oh, must have been about a month. And then for all that labor, you got to be put in solitary for two weeks.
What was solitary? What --
Solitary was being in a dungeon with water and your "good" potatoes and food. (Laughter.) And your toilet had to be right in that little square.
In the same place.
It wasn't pleasant, but I counted the straw in my co -- or in my mattress. That's how I got through it.
Okay.
Yeah. You begin to think they throw away the key, and so that was the only discouraging part. If they threw away the key, how the hell would you ever get out --
Oh, sure.
-- you know.
How -- was it a short room, too, or was it --
No. I was not a tall person, but I'm sure it was six-foot tall.
Six-foot tall?
Maybe seven.
And how much of --
Oh, 21 square feet.
21 square feet.
Yeah.
So four-by-five?
Three-by-seven.
Three-by-seven?
Yeah.
Is there -- what did you sleep on?
Well, there was only one opening that you could look out where you got your food in.
Okay.
And you passed out your waste. The only bad thing is you didn't -- you didn't get out for exercise or anything like that. So solitary was not any fun, but, I mean, it's better than getting shot. I got back on a Liberty Ship and --
You did?
Yeah. And there were six -- one, two, three, four, five, six people, and if the guy below farted, it came up.
(Laughter.)
(Laughter.)
Oh. (Laughter.)
It was pretty bad. (Laughter.)
Oh. (Laughter.)
But if it got bad enough, you'd get outside and you'd go on board ship.
Oh.
You'd get some fresh air.
How long was -- how were the --
Six days.
-- many days did it take to get back?
Six days coming back.
Did you -- were you seasick at all or did you have --
No. Didn't have time to be seasick. We were all so excited about coming home.
Ah.
And we landed in Virginia, Newport News in Virginia. And, boy, they had it organized: Lieutenant Koch, here are your orders. Your train is gonna leave at such and such a time, and you are to be on it. And, of course, I was in Newport News, and I knew Jean was in San Francisco going to state college at San Jose, and so I had a chance to call her and let her know I would be coming into Sacramento.
Uh-huh.
So she met me in Sacramento.
Ah.
Yeah.
What was that like to see her again? Do you remember when you first saw her?
Well, I think she saw me first. Didn't you?
I think I did.
Yeah, I don't think I saw her first.
No.
A nice reunion.
I bet. But before I forget, if -- when you look back at your experience -- I know right now your feelings about war, you are very strongly anti -- anti-war, did you -- how did you feel when you got back? Did -- or how did the war change you, did your experience change you?
Well, that's hard to say --
I am sure it is.
-- because we were so glad to be back, and it was so miserable to be in a prison camp. It was just like being let loose, so to speak.
Uh-huh.
But the destruction that I witnessed on my trips, first in Hamburg and then Frankfurt and then Berlin where we went through on our way -- each time you went one way, you always went through Berlin. From Hamburg we went to Berlin, and then Berlin to Frankfurt, and Frankfurt to Berlin, to Rastatt, to Barth. And the -- I never dreamed of all the bombs that I dropped, how much damage they incurred, but in Frankfurt I didn't see a single house that was standing.
No.
They were practically all destroyed. In fact, I was astonished when I went to Germany in 1968 to a medical meeting that they had rebuilt practically everything. There was hardly a sign of the war. It really was astonishing. Energy and organization and ability, remarkable, really.
What do you say to -- what can you say to people now who just in the -- when you -- when you joined it was a different sort of war. Also it was a --
Yeah, we never had the kind of problems they have today. I mean, everybody was gung-ho. The women were working and the men were off to war, and that was -- it was clear the Japanese had hit Pearl Harbor and Hitler was a bastard. I mean, it just was a different setting, and it -- the Iraq thing is so bad. There's no way out of Iraq. It's -- it's gonna end up with us getting booted out.
Uh-huh.
That's the only way we're gonna get out.
Uh-huh.
And the sooner we realize that and get out, the better off we'll be. But I just listened to Bush today: "We are staying, of course, and we're gonna do this and we're gonna do that, and, boy, that's what we are here for. We're gonna bring democracy to this country." Well, I don't think he knows what he's talking about, to be honest with you.
Do you -- what -- is there anything else you want to talk about now?
Umm --
You have been talking, and at any time did you think "I wish this guy would leave, leave us alone?" You can just kick me out.
Oh, gosh, I could talk all night.
I could always come back another time.
I think --
What's this picture?
This is a picture of the first R & R I had when we were at Camp Lucky Strike, and that was an officers' group that went to Paris. And the best story I have is that while I was in Paris, the first woman I saw was a redhead. Beautiful girl. The next woman I saw was a redhead, and I thought, gee, there's a lot of redheads around here. And the third one I saw was a redhead, and then I realized, oh, they were all painting their hair red.
(Laughter.)
(Laughter.) But I got to go to the Moulin Rouge.
Ah.
And that was exciting. And I took Jean just last year to the Moulin Rouge when we were in Paris, and I think she enjoyed it, too.
Did it -- did it bring back memories?
Oh, yeah. My goodness.
They were different girls.
Yes. (Laughter.)
Yeah. (Laughter.)
So you're about, oh, what -- (Referring to photo.)
I think -- I don't think you'd recognize me but I'm -- where am I. (Reviewing.) I'm in the front row right there. (Indicating.)
Right there.
Yeah.
There you are. And Camp Lucky Strike was where?
It was in Normandy.
In Normandy.
They had two or three camps that were named after cigarettes, and I was lucky to be in Lucky Strike.
In Lucky Strike.
There was a Camp Chesterfield, and, you know, all those different cigarettes that were --
Oh, that's right. I remember that.
(Laughter.)
But I never put it together until right now that Camp Chesterfield was after cigarettes.
Yeah. Camp Camel. I think Camel for --
Sure.
-- cigarettes.
You know they -- the corporations always know how to market.
Yeah.
What's that there?
That's I think a bombardier school graduation.
Bombardier school.
Yeah.
Yes. Formal graduation. Very --
That's the one we -- they gave us for --
Roswell armored flying school, Roswell, New Mexico announces the graduation... Do you remember the graduation ceremony?
Yeah, I do. Yeah.
Was it impressive to you?
Yes, it was. (Laughter.)
You must have -- you know, I see these pictures of Dick being so handsome.
(Laughter.)
(Laughter.)
And you were beautiful.
Yeah, she was a beautiful gal, too.
Oh, yeah.
Oh, that was the other picture.
So war department, Richard A. Koch, Second Lieutenant.
And a --
That's what your final rank was?
Yeah. And Jean saved a couple of these little items, "liberated air heroes now in England" when we got out of the camp and that sort of thing.
"Liberated air heroes now in England."
Yeah. I think the thing that the service did for me, and I ought to close with this, I know you're getting tired, too, is the amount of money that I was eligible for when I got out of the camp, because I had been in a camp for 15 months and my salary had accumulated, and they gave me that lump sum of money. And I used that to go back to college. And then when I went to medical school, I had the GI Bill of Rights, and that gave me $500 to pay tuition. And in those days $500 was a lot of money, but today that same medical school is 25,000, if you can imagine the difference.
Holy cow.
Yeah, really. Too bad. I think that what's happening is that they are making it impossible for a person to work their way through college now, and that's bad. That means we have a lot of people going to college who have never worked, and I think --
That's true.
-- that means we're gonna have people who don't care about people much, being doctors. I think -- I think it's a bad social change that's happening right in front of our noses.
That's interesting. My brother had been, before he got --
Yeah.
-- sick, he was the head of medicine at Queens Hospital in Honolulu. He and his wife, now ex-wife, started on a trip there, army base, and then they --
Yeah.
But he felt he was privileged. He was in one of the last classes at Northwestern where he thought they were taught to use their minds. He said now -- when he was still teaching, he would bring people in for the -- I sat in one time, and he was talking to his residents.
Yeah.
And he'd say, well, tell me about your most interesting case that night. And I remember someone was talking, and he says, well, what did you do? And this guy said, I did this test, I did this test and this test. And my brother said, well, you know, if you'd done this one test --
Yeah.
-- you would have found out enough information, and you just cost someone $3,000. Do you want to pay for it yourself?
Yeah.
But he said -- but there's a whole -- what you said right now about doctors not having -- maybe this -- not working their way through, they don't have the touch with people.
I think it's bad because it means that a person like myself, who might want to go to medical school, couldn't go now. There's no way you could earn $25,000 a year, I mean --
No.
-- you know.
It's -- it's almost like it's made it --
Oh, yeah.
-- inaccessible to the __
Yes, I think.
So here -- here right now before we go, here's a comic strip that is written, called Klim Kriegy --
Klim Kriegy.
-- mail shipment.
Yeah. Well, the word "Klim" has a special meaning, you know.
Yeah.
That powdered milk was -- we knew it was important for calcium and for nutrition and vitamins and things like that.
What did it taste -- now, if you had to describe the taste from something that's around now, what --
There is nothing like Klim.
Nothing?
(Laughter.) Not that I know of, anyway. (Laughter.) You mentioned the medals that you get and this sort of thing.
Sure.
I've never worn them, but I've saved them, and Jean knows that I'd like to be buried with them, and then now we've decided to be cremated, and so I'm kind of struggling with what to do with them, and I think I might give them to my daughter.
That's a good thing.
Yeah.
What medals did you have?
Flying cross. You get a -- one for --
Oh, five of them, I think. I'll show you.
For five -- for five missions you got a medal.
You got one?
Yeah. They figured if you make ten, that's pretty good. If you made 15, it was better.
It was better.
And at 25 you got a real flying cross but --
So you were --
But most of us didn't make 25.
No.
Of the 60 crews, only eight made it through to go home.
Oh.
So the mortality is pretty high.
Oh, I don't know what these things all are. I guess -- (Reviewing.) Let's -- oh, that's a cater -- he belonged to the Caterpillar Club. That's --
What is that?
Anybody that get -- that has to jump out and go into a parachute belongs to the Caterpillar Club.
(Laughter.)
That's like a bronze caterpillar. Anyone who has to jump out of a plane -- you mean who has to bail out.
Yeah.
Oh, yeah. BY
Yeah.
Okay. Anyone has to bail out becomes a part of --
The Caterpillar Club.
When it's burning around you, you don't even think about that --
No.
-- I tell you.
And these two?
Those are your bombing -- bombardier wings.
Bombardier.
And these two, one is the Eighth Air Force and the other is for over Germany.
Over Germany.
And that's an oak leaf cluster. I don't know what it means.
Yeah. Well, oak leaf cluster you get for five missions.
Hmm.
Okay. And these two are your --
The bars.
Your lieutenant bars? And these with the --
That's air force.
That's air force.
Yeah. See, we were in the army air force.
Uh-huh.
And the air force didn't become a separate unit until after the war.
Well, this -- this has been a -- this has been such a treat.
(Laughter.)
Well, let me do it at closing and I will put this at the very beginning.
Yes.
Because we have launched into it now. This is David Meyer, or David Meyer O'Shea. I am the son of Earl D. Meyer, Company H 379th 95th infantry. Today is March 2nd. Now it's 10:00 p.m., and I am in the home of Richard Koch who is -- What was your final rank, Dick?
First Lieutenant.
First Lieutenant. And, again, you were with the --
458th bomb group.
458th bomb group.
In the Eighth Air Force.
In the Eighth Air Force.
Stationed in England.
Stationed in England. And he's honored me with talk about his time in the war and in the various camps. And also present is his wife Jean. End of CD 2